Performing the Threshold’ is a project that aims to analyze the concept of the border from the perspective of performativity. The border, which is usually simplified as a division line between two diverse entities such as territories, disciplines, counter-narratives, or gender binaries; is performative. The performativity of the border underlines that the border is much more than separation, it is a threshold (schwelle) that evokes transformation, action, and passage. The threshold is a zone of potentialities, where the stability of the border and the acceptability of binaries are radically questioned and challenged. Border performativity relates with gender performativity as the border is ‘real’, only when it is performed. Bodily and linguistic performances such as state regulations, procedures, rituals, and narratives as well as protests and acts of resistance continuously perform the border.

Željka Aleksić deals with gender performances, considering the daily makeup routine as a second persona. While her artwork considers the biological body as a threshold, a porous space between self/other, the works of Jelena Micić and Deniz Güvensoy investigate the urban thresholds as spaces of the contest between diverse communities. The work of Jelena Micić shows how football club supporters metaphorically acquire territory by demarcating specific neighbourhoods of Belgrade with the colours of the club. Güvensoy’s installation is part of her research, which analyses Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge as a threshold that characterises and reproduces certain aporias between East/West, modernity/tradition, and secular/conservative. Žarko Aleksić investigates the threshold between the human mind and AI by mimicking computer algorithms used in face recognition, edge detection, and object recognition with traditional painting techniques.

*Supported by ÖH Fem-Queer-Fördertop